Wulfsyarn: A Mosaic (4 page)

Well, after almost two thousand years of suppression and guilt, finally the cry went up, “God is Dead,” and for a time there was great confusion. There were those who spat on the image of the cruel father and his suffering, demanding son, on account of all the injustice they had created. Others recorded the passing of the old Judeo-Christian gods with dry but respectful eyes. Dying divinity can yet have some magnificence. Like Ozymandias of old, the faces of the cruel Gods were gradually worn away until they became a palimpsest on which could be imprinted the feces of new and gentler goddesses and gods of Earth and Sun and Water. But these were not images of authority. They were images of internal and intuitive truths ... as old as time itself. And what relief they brought!

But this transition (which was also a transformation) did not occur quickly or quietly. Lacking any true sense of why humankind is valuable, slaughter escalated, reaching proportions of frenzy in the twentieth century when genocide was practiced. We can say that the dying Achilles, fearful and dread as his strength faded, cast about him in his madness until in his turn, he fell.

Of course, God was not dead. He’d merely shed part of his sex and moved back inside the human mind where true values reside. The space that had been occupied by the old jealous God was quickly taken up by religions of nature, religions of hills and trees, religions of the wicca and religions of ecstasy. Celebrated at every turn was the creative divinity within all humans. In a word, Dionysos.

Dionysos, with wine for blood and coiling like an oiled blue snake, and who bore a striking resemblance to a laughing and irreverent Christ, became again an open presence on the Earth.

Within a few short years of the Earth being seen from space, rising above the gray face of the moon, a truce was declared between the military powers who held the world’s fete in their hands. I wish I could tell you that this truce was a result of world consciousness, but it was not. Though the people might plead for respect, care and justice, it was finally economics which led to the truce. Warfare had become too costly. At the same time and at a deeper level, political institutions were discovering a need to evolve. The truce lasted long enough for mankind to jump deep into space and, in that
annus mirabilis
2029, to reach out to the stars.

The names of those first ships tell of the optimism of the human spirit. The
Beagle,
the
Clarke
, the
Aidan, Cornucopia,
the
Dancing Boy,
the
Newton
and
Maidengrace.
Within months of those first voyages word returned to Earth that other life had been discovered, not just here and there, but everywhere. Life, it appeared, was the norm throughout the galaxy. Lowly amoeba, living on the brink of disaster on a burning moon, with scarcely more consciousness than a knowledge of whether they hurt or not, were estimated with the great and sophisticated Lot-jos who looked like giant hooded bats and who had achieved space travel and then abandoned it in favor of living quietly at home.

This became the highday of old Mother Earth.

It was a time when new philosophies called everything into doubt. The non-human life forms, manifestly different, manifestly intelligent, by their very existence compelled a reevaluation of the meaning of the word “civilized” and the word “alien.” Indeed, the word “alien” became applied as much to human beings as to life forms which were not native to Earth.

It was a time when parochialism, fatalism and petty fascism could have led to the extinction of the Earth but to human kind’s credit these -isms were defeated.

It was a time when the old categories of human knowledge were jumbled and broken. Physical science joined with ethics, chemistry with religion, tragedy with farce, so that even wise old men did not know whether to laugh or cry. Value systems became of primary interest and every religion on earth sent out its missionaries. Saffron-robed monks with shaven heads sat down beside philosophers with six scampering legs and shared their thoughts. Roman Catholic priests and priestesses sought dialogue with scaly entities who daily drank the blood and ate the flesh of their elected Gods. Some who ventured forth suffered a kind of martyrdom, hoist on a cross of their own making. Others believed they had encountered Satan incarnate. Some made headway, others were converted out of their faith. On every front there was change. Earth itself became a mixing bowl of creeds.

The Franciscans changed more than most. Their inherent respect for life in all its manifestations whether fish, bird or flower, meant that from a very early time they accepted alien converts into their number. It was an alien convert, a humanoid out of Farsia, a brilliant scholar by all accounts who knew much about Earth from generations of observations, who effected the liberation of the old God Dionysos and joined him openly with the kindly priest, St. Francis. Note that in doing this, the Farsian scholar was merely adopting the Earthly name Dionysos for a religious principle which is to be found on most advanced worlds. For example, on Farsia the name for our order is The Gentle Order of St. Francis Omian and in the language of that world the
omian
is what humans call the placenta, and it is worshipped as a symbol of the life force linking all Farsians with their origins. The same has been known on the Earth.

The creation of the new order, the Gentle Order of St. Francis Dionysos, can be seen as an attempt to unify the best that Earth had to offer and at the same time nullify the destructive power of its institutions.

The Order of St. Francis Dionysos prospered.

It continues to prosper and it holds to its ideals for they are real and manifest and contain no cruelty or suppression. Respect for life is the very core of its existence.

And this for the time being is all that need be known. Later I will speak about the War of Knowledge and its successor, the War of Ignorance, which so devastated the galaxy that it left us of the Gentle Order as the only organization with the power to journey between worlds. Just consider the responsibility that this implied.

We are still paying for this last horrible war. We discovered to our great cost that Achilles was not dead but merely sleeping. Perhaps that will always be the case.

Wilberfoss drew his dark blue gown about him, pulled the hood up over his head and stepped out into the silent street. He eased the heavy door closed behind him and, with the door shut, breathed more freely.

His house was set back in a covered walkway which resembled a cloister. No windows were evident. The solid black polished door with his name in brass letters beside it presented a bold and austere front and gave no hint of the comfortable rooms and spacious garden which lay within.

Wilberfoss moved from the dark shadow under the arcade and out into the street proper. The street was lit by star-shine and the light was not inconsiderable for though the planet Juniper has no moon, the stars which blaze in its night sky on any clear night give a cold steely light by which travelers can find their way.

The air had the rich tang of night: a mingling of the moist breath of trees and flowers with the bitter smell of turned earth and the clean coldness of air descended from mountains. It was springtime. Wilberfoss breathed deeply and set off on the long climb up through the monastery. His gown filled with the breeze and his silver sash rope swung at his side.

First he walked along a cobbled street at the end of which he came to a small piazza where four narrow pathways joined. The one to his left curved downward toward a high wall in which was set an arched door. Beyond the wall and stooping over it were trees, silver-leaved in the starlight. This is the entry to Lily’s Garden. I don’t know whether Wilberfoss looked down toward the garden, but if he did then he would have seen the bull-headed statue of Francis Dionysos standing outside the gate, talking to the creatures, his arms spread tirelessly. The second way led down to the wharf where Talline fishing boats were bobbing in the tide. Wilberfoss chose the third way which led up to the right via shallow stone steps to a steep wooden staircase. The treads boomed as he climbed. At the top of the staircase he found himself on a parapet above the sea. The parapet became a bridge and he could hear and see the glossy black waves thump and break into lather against the city wall some hundreds of feet beneath his feet. Beyond the bridge the climb became simple: a tacking back and forth along narrow streets which gradually worked their ways upward to the high, lonely and exposed house where Magister Tancredi lived.

Before its present incarnation as the home of the Pacifico Monastery, this gathering of buildings, holding close to the northern slopes of a mountain and enclosing a natural harbor, had been a trading city of the Tallines. It was an ancient city even by Talline standards and the site had been occupied since the earliest times of their civilization. Today the old city is entirely occupied by the monastery and small homesteads of native Tallines occupy the hinterland. There is no rancor in this. The Tallines presented their city as a gift to the Gentle Order and they remain among the Order’s most staunch supporters.

I must tell you something about these Tallines.

For a start, they are humanoid. The main difference between Tallines and humans is that the Tallines are generally taller and fetter than their Terran equivalents. Even so, a Talline male could walk unremarked through any Terran city. A Talline woman, however, would cause stares and possibly embarrassment. The women are as tall as the men and as broad of shoulder, but the anatomical arrangement which makes them distinct from women of Earth is that they have four breasts. The upper two of these, in accordance with the oldest customs of their world, are generally presented naked. They also tend to have more body hair than Earth women.

However, the most amazing feet is that the two alien races can interbreed. This feet has been taken as evidence that both Tallines and humans are descended from a single proto-race which is now presumed extinct but which once was able to “seed” selected parts of our galaxy. Such a theory is widely accepted. “In its absence,” as one authority commented, “there would be more chance of a human mating with an oak tree, with whom he at least shares a common genetic inheritance, than with an alien.” The feet remains that Talline males have fathered children with human women and Confrere Wilberfoss who is now climbing up through the sleeping city has four children by his Talline wife, two sons and twin daughters.

Wilberfoss climbed up stairways slippery with dew and paused at the place called Temptation. Here the street rounded a headland and was cantilevered out from the wall of the cliff in a kind of balcony. Below was the dark sea and above was the shining sky. Seats were set against the cliff face and a narrow rail guarded the edge of the path.

The balcony was a favorite place for meditation in the morning, and for lovers in the evening. From here, according to legend, a young confrere called Juvenal once jumped into the air and flew across the bay and landed at the shuttle port. Perhaps Jon Wilberfoss thought of him as he paused, both hands gripping the rail, and stared out through the dark air to where the lights of the shuttle port gleamed.

The shuttle port never closed and even as Wilberfoss watched, one of the shuttles, with its flashing red and blue beacon, slid down an invisible track toward the reception halls.

Wilberfoss looked up. High above and glowing like a string of luminous pearls was the Pacifico Platform. Standing off from that was the ghostly shape of the
Centaur.
The
Centaur
had arrived early the previous day from the distant Blind Man System carrying a cargo of machine parts and some bio-crystalline replacement equipment for the Pacifico Monastery. Wilberfoss had piloted the giant ship from its transit orbit to the Pacifico Platform and had supervised the docking. In three days’ time, if the schedule held true, Wilberfoss would again ascend in the shuttle and take command of the
Centaur
and guide it to the platforms which serviced the other main monasteries on Juniper. These are called Kithaeron, Fum and Sesha. After these visits he would bid the
Centaur
farewell and it would head back into deep space and vanish.

Standing there at the rail, Confrere Wilberfoss had a simplicity and innocence beyond time and place. To those romantically minded he might have been mistaken for one of the original simple followers of the first St. Francis,

adept in the ways of the fields and hedgerows, but hardly a scientist.

The same can be said for all of them, all the confreres who inhabit the different monasteries. In some ways they are simple followers. At the same time they are highly trained technicians, mathematicians, welders, philosophers, grease monkeys and medics. As is frequently said, “The Gentle Order turns on faith, love and technology.”

Now more about the Tallines.

The Tallines failed (though “avoided” might be a more accurate description) to achieve a technological society based on steam or electricity. Their technology is based in nature. They are great carvers of wood and shapers of stone. They achieve their effects by rubbing rather than chipping. They work the wind on land and sea and their main occupations are farming, fishing and cooking. As a society the Tallines are static and that is their strength. They do not consider change to be a virtue. “As boring as a Talline Sunday” was once a common expression among the young firebrands of the Gentle Order. And that defines the limited perspectives of some of the younger confreres.

While failing to achieve a technology much more advanced than block and tackle, the Tallines also failed to achieve a dogmatic religion. The only supernatural powers which are given much attention or credence on their world are the gods of the hearth, the gods of the field and the gods of the sea. In observance these are treated more as friends than as entities to be worshipped. Perhaps it is for this reason that the ideals of the Gentle Order took easy root among the Tallines: for the tenets of St. Francis Dionysos describe a pragmatic philosophy of life rather than a mystical religion of salvation. Mysticism can look after itself.